NOTES TO CHAPTER I 329
were unscientific and boastful, and he was an anti-vaccinator (see Munk, Roll of the College
of Physicians, ii, p. 340) but in the light of our present knowledge of typhus it is easy to
see that his system may well have worked wonders, especially by comparison with the old
methods of bleeding and purging.
(101) Account of the Samaritan Society by Dr Glasse (suggesting that other hospitals
should imitate the London) in the SecondReport of the Society for ketterir.g the Condition of
the Poor, I798» PP- 93 & T^6 principle of the after-care of patients seems to have been first
adopted by the Lock Hospital in 1787 when it established the Lock Asylum for women and
girls, who, on leaving the Hospital would be destitute and forced to return to their old
profession; they did needlework and were trained for domestic service. This however
was a rescue home rather than a medical charity. The Charity for Convalescents of St
George's Hospital (1809) on a plan submitted by Dr Heberden was on the lines of the
Samaritan; it also provided patients with surgical appliances. Other medical charities
which deserve mention are the Society for the Relief of Sick and Maimed Seamen in the
Merchant Service (174?), the National Truss Society (1786), Dr Turnbull having drawn
attention to the great prevalence of hernia among the labouring poor. This was followed
by the Rupture Society in 1796 and the City Truss Society in 1807. In 1793 the Sea
Bathing Infirmary for die Poor of London was founded at Margate (opened 1796). The
London Dispensary for curing diseases of the Eye and Ear opened in 1805 became die
London Infirmary for the Eye in 1808, and the Royal Infirmary for the Eye (1805) was
the outcome of the previous gratuitous treatment of the poor by Phipps.
When vaccination was introduced institutions for free vaccination multiplied in London,
but from the beginning violent controversy raged round the whole question, and also
between rival societies which seceded from one another in a bewildering way. The first
vaccine dispensary was the Vaccine Pock Institution founded by Dr G. Pearson in Decem-
ber 1799. The Royal Jennerian Society was short-lived; it opened twelve stations in and
near London for die free vaccination of the poor. The London Vaccine Institution was a
secession from the Jennerian and had about fifteen stations. On the suspension of the
Jennerian, the National Vaccine Institution under the patronage of the Government and
the supervision of the Royal College of Physicians succeeded it. Yet another was the
London Vaccine Institution (1806) for the inoculation of all applicants gratis, and for the
free supply of vaccine to afl practitioners who applied for it. Two dispensaries at least
which had previously inoculated adopted vaccination - the Universal Medical and the
Western (see note So), while at the Bloomsbury Jenner himself superintended vaccination.
Highmore, Pietos Lon&nensis, 1810, p. 332 f£ Colo^houn, Police of the Metropolis^
1797 (see above, n, 86), the reports issued by many of the societies mentioned (catalogued
under London in the B.M. Catalogue) and Pettigrew, Memoirs of Lettsom. For the
vaccination controversy see Report from the Committee on Dr Jenner's Petition respecting
... Vaccine Inoculation, 6th May 2802.
(102) See, for instance, Wales, Inquiry into the Present State of the Population of England
and Wales, 1781; W. Black, Ooservations on the Small-pox, 1781; W. Heberden, op. ch.
and 'Some Observations on the Scurvy*, Medical Transactions „.. IV; F. Bateman, J2e-
ports on the Diseases of London, 1819; Gilbert Blane, Select Dissertations, 1833.
(103) 'Tea is an article universally grateful to the British population and has to a
certain extent supplanted intoxicating liquors in afl ranks, to the great advantage of
society.... The modern use of tea has probably contributed to the extended longevity of
the inhabitants of this country/ Blane, op. cit., i, p. 55.
See also Rickman's correspondence with dlvernoia in 1827: *It is not for Mr Rickman
to assign causes of the decrease of mortality; if he might venture further than in the